Shanghai Bound

This just in via email from Walker, posted by Secret Agent Number One. A bit of redundancy from yesterday, but faithful readers will no doubt get over it. He writes:

I am in Umurqi, China now. And since I'm in China I don't have access to my blog because the Chinese government has seen it fit to ban Blogger.com so I'm posting through my dad. (Dang, my cover is blown! Valerie Plame, I feel your pain.) I'm going to say this up front I know my posts have been pretty long but if you look at the title of my blog, One Man's Rambles, I'm not just talking about my voyages. And since I haven't posted in a while I have a lot to say. (Editor's note--you always have.)

The drive from Karimabad to Sost was pretty uneventful and once again I was surprised, no one got sick on that ride either, eh it was a short one and I lost another 15 Rupees to the British professor. No big deal the last night I earned it back in a little session of Texas Hold'em. Gambling with worthless currency is fun cause you feel like you're rolling in the money when really it's less than $2 bucks. From Sost I managed to jump on a Gilgit - Kashgar direct, or so they claim, bus. Leaving Pakistan was probably the most stressful border crossing I've encountered to date. No scams on this one like in Africa but just anti-narcotics officers who take their jobs a little too seriously. First off, the gentleman in front of me had his bags unceremoniously dumped and the guard started pushing him around physically.

Ian Steinmo mentioned that in China race is everything and I guess that applies to Pakistan as well because even though my legs were a bit wobbly when I stepped up, the guy was very professional to me. Made me take everything out of my bag and it was a little awkward trying to explain why I did not need a perscription for Immodium AD and its opposite. Well I guess the awkward part was trying to explain what each of them did, yes theatre did play a role and if it shows up on YouTube I'll have to come back and hurt someone.

All along the KKH there are signs from the 141st Road Maintenance Batallion proclaiming that they are the "Defenders of the Karakorum." When I first saw this I started laughing but having passed through the northern areas I see they're absolutely right. The mountains here seem to be whispering "if you stop for just one day we will destroy this road." Even the actual "border crossing" on the Pakistan side is 70km away from the actual border and about 120km on the Chinese side. The numerous avalanches and landslides kept cutting the soldiers off for long periods of time so they just pulled back.

For those of you who have spent any amount of time around glaciers you know how you can hear them, cracking and grinding and little bits of ice dropping off all the time. Well that's how the mountains here are, little trickles of pebbles show instablity of the landscape. According to the guidebook the builders used way too much dynamite and the mountains themselves are still settling. I mentioned earlier that a landslide had knocked out the road. That's partially true; the landslide was on the opposite side of the river but it diverted the river and washed out about 1.5 km of road. The bus took us as far as possible then we got out and hiked 2 km up and over the affected area to a bus on the far side.

The scenery is amazing, and the pass itself was beautiful. glacier-cut valleys many with glaciers still reaching out give way to snow-capped peaks on either side. The pass is over 15,000 feet-- that's taller than every mountain in Colorado--and it is the lowest point there. Needless to say I was a little out of breath on the walk over the landslide but that was down around 10,000 feet. After crossing into the China we spent the night in Tashkurgan due to heavy rain ahead. I didn't see a single drop but it was nice to sleep in a bed not the bus for a change.

My dorm mates were a 20 year-old Chinese student who, of course, didn't speak English and a drunk 60 year old Chinese guy who knew three in English and would repeat them over and over between gigles. After Tashkurgan is where the views became even more amazing. Driving north we passed yurts and yurt-like permanent dwellings with mixed herds of cattle and camels milling around. The lakes were like mirriors reflecting the mountains towering overhead. The rolling grasslands gave way to a descent below river-cut plateaus bordered by erosion-resisting cathedral spires.

Though this imagery is pastoral don't let it become bucolic because this area also is harsh and I wouldn't for one instant want to live there. Remains of animals, some large some small, and remains of vehicles dot both sides of the highway. We arrived in Kashgar sometime arround noon I think on the 26th.

Though my original plans were to meet Ian here I think that it was probably for the best that he did not make the journey there really isn't that much to do here, and it would have been a shame for him to spend 72 hours in transit to just see this place and then turn around and head back. 24 hours from Kashgar to Umurqi by bus passed pretty uneventfully; at least this bus was all sleepers not seats so I could doze off for a while and then read or find something else to amuse myself. No longer in the mountains we are skirting one of China's many deserts and I can't remember the name of the town but it is the single furthest place in the world from an ocean--something like 2,600 km or thereabouts.

Umurqi is a big city but with surprisingly little to do. That combined with the language barrier makes it very hard to do, well, anything really. I placed a phone call to Ian for a status update and when I tried to pay for it, trying to speak Chinese of course, I was handed a pack of cigarettes and a tomato-juice drink. Trying to find an Internet cafe is like poking yourself in the eye and then trying to do some delicate surgery. No joke it was like something out of a movie "Oh you go this way, okay now back the other way, okay now around the corner oh that place closed yesterday." All in sign language of course.

I guess I'm just starting to exhibit signs of being a pack animal but here I am surrounded by people and very lonely. I haven't had a conversation since I left Sost. And all the little voices in my head are starting to develop very distinct personalities. That or I try to replay various strategies and tactics in my head. Alright, I'll let you go. I'll be a much happier camper when I get to Shanghai in two days.